Kitty Hawk/Nags Head, North Carolina is a great place for a vacation home!

Kitty Hawk is located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Town of Kitty Hawk offers year-round residents and visitors alike a unique and relaxing environment. The Town consists of a thriving Village that has been around for generations, a newer beach community of residential cottages, and a maritime forest called Kitty Hawk Woods. The Woods feature a wide variety of plant and animal life.

The beach and village consist of low to medium density, single-family residential developments served by small businesses. Both the beach and the village share a feeling that development remains on a human scale and in harmony with nature. It is a pattern and character of development that the Town's people, both year-round and seasonal, are quite comfortable with and want to retain.

The origin of the name Kitty Hawk is still a matter of local debate. Most people agree that it is a Native American name for this area. The word originally appeared on English settlers' maps as "Chickehawk" or "Chickahawk" in the early 1700's. By the late 1700's, local residents spelled the name as we do today, with old land deeds referring to settlements as "Kittyhuk," "Kittyhark," KittyHawk," and "Kitty Hawk."



Nags Head is a beach resort location on the Outer Banks of the state of North Carolina. People often use the names Nags Head and Outer Banks interchangeably, despite the fact that Nags Head covers only a few miles of the expansive barrier island chain properly known of as the Outer Banks. This is due to its status as the most heavily developed and frequented location along the Banks.

Early maps of the area show Nags Head as a promontory of land characterized by high sand dunes visible from miles at sea. Tales of land pirates that lured ships ashore in stormy weather may be the possible origin of the town's name. Or it may have been carried across the sea by English explorers who were reminded of a similar location of the English coast, a high point on the Isles of Scilly, the last sight of old England that the earlier explorers were to see on their voyage to the New World.

The true origin is obscured, but legend and lore insists that early 18th century bandits known as Bankers, realized how profitable piracy was for sea-going scoundrels such as Blackbeard, and developed their own unique method as land-based pirates. Horses with lanterns tied to their necks were walked up and down the beach at night. Merchant skippers in the off-shore waters would mistakenly think the lights were of other ships closer to shore. They would then change course and run aground, with the Bankers pillaging their cargoes.

Around 1830, Nags Head became known as a plush resort area and so remains today. Jockey's Ridge is the last vestige of the giant moving sand dunes that once towered over the beaches and greeted the first explorers, as the area is now highly developed, featuring a variety of rental properties, restaurants, and bars.